Russia’s ‘Stalingrad’ Is a Hit on Screen

MOSCOW — Like any Hollywood premiere, there were the feted starlets in
sparkling gowns and directors in tailored suits working the red carpet.
But there were others, too: an aide to President Vladimir V. Putin, the
head of Moscow’s Department of Culture, military men in black tie with
rows of medals hanging from their chests. They had come for the opening
of “Stalingrad,” Russia’s first film in Imax 3-D and the most successful
movie here since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The love story set on the apocalyptic backdrop of the German-Soviet
Battle of Stalingrad, which left more than one million dead, is also
Russia’s most ambitious. With about $30 million in financing, nearly the
entire budget of the movie was provided in grants and investment by the
government and state-backed companies. It was also highly marketed:
Stills from the making of the movie were exhibited at one of the
country’s premier photography galleries and movie theaters gave free
tickets to World War II
veterans. Even before its release in October, Russia’s Oscars committee
selected “Stalingrad” as its nomination for the 2014 Academy Award for
best foreign-language film.

Since opening in theaters in early October, “Stalingrad” has grossed
about $50 million in Russia and eclipsed the former highest-grossing
film, “The Irony of Fate: Continuation,” the 2007 sequel to a beloved
Soviet comedy that Russians watch during the holidays, not unlike
America’s “It’s a Wonderful Life.” For the country’s producers,
directors and bureaucrats, who for years have complained about the
Russian film industry’s poor production values and anemic receipts,
“Stalingrad” is the greatest success story yet of an effort to engineer
the “socially meaningful blockbuster.”...